Óscar Freire has won his first race in Katusha colours after the Spaniard
outsprinted Gerald Ciolek and Daniele Bennati to the finishing line to claim
the 130-kilometre fourth stage of the Tour Down Under in Tanunda while
Martin Kohler regained the overall lead.

Vintage red: Óscar Freire, the veteran Spanish sprinter, won his first race for Katusha at stage four of the Tour Down UnderPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

By Telegraph staff and agencies

6:58AM GMT 20 Jan 2012

A technical finish into the Barossa Valley town of Tanunda saw the veteran Spanish sprinter take line honours to claim his first win of the season, and his first for his new Russian team in what will be his final season before he retires after the Olympic Games.

Freire finished ahead of Germany's Ciolek and Italian Bennati, with general classification contenders Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Sky and Rabobank's Michael Matthews coming close behind.

"It's great to get this first win of the season for myself and the team I just joined," said Freire, a former three-time world champion.

"It was a difficult finale, but that suited me. I won because the race was made hard."

Kohler, BMC Racing's Swiss time-trial champion, regained the leader's ochre jersey which has been toing and froing between two-time winner André Greipel and himself from the start of the opening WorldTour race of the season.

Following Greipel's stage three win on Thursday the Lotto-Belisol sprinter claimed that Saturday's stage finish on Willunga Hill would end his ambitions to win a third Tour Down Under.

However, the German dominated the field at the first intermediate sprint to add three bonus seconds to his eight-second overnight lead on Kohler.

That decision was like a "red flag" to the Australian GreenEdge team who will be hoping for a dream debut on home soil for the newly-formed ProTeam.

With around 23km to race, GreenEdge drove the pace hard early on the 3.5km-long climb to Menglers Hill, and after being joined by Alejandro Valverde's Movistar team their combined efforts left most of the peloton struggling.

"On Menglers Hill I used [team-mates] Robbie [McEwen] and Matt [Goss] and Leigh [Howard] just to put the pressure on and make it really intense.

"We wanted to put the sprinters into the red early. Movistar then moved up and took over from us. It split the peloton very early on the climb."

The stragglers chased, but at the finish most came over the line over six minutes in arrears.

GreenEdge's efforts kept Simon Gerrans well in contention for a second Tour Down Under victory, but with a number of other contenders only seconds off the pace the team could be in for another tough day on Saturday.

Kohler meanwhile has found himself in the unexpected position of being able to win the overall race.

"I didn't expect to get the jersey again," said Kohler.

"I only got it because Greipel was dropped on the climb. After that, we rode hard to make the gap bigger.

"Tomorrow there will 15 riders contending the win at the top of Willunga. Whether I keep the jersey depends a lot on how the race goes."